The statements in this section merely provide background information related to this disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Industrial coating of metal articles that will be used in corrosive environments may include application of one or more inorganic and organic treatments and coatings. Painting systems (“paint shops”) in automotive assembly plants are large, complex, and expensive. Metal automotive vehicle bodies (the “body-in-white”) and parts, for instance, are given a many-step treatment of cleaning in one or more cleaning baths or spray tanks, application of an aqueous phosphate coating material as a metal pretreatment step in a phosphating bath, then various rinses and additional finishing treatments, such as described in Claffey, U.S. Pat. No. 5,868,820. The phosphating pre-treatment steps are undertaken to improve corrosion resistance of the metal and adhesion of subsequent coatings to the metal. The cleaning and phosphating steps may have 10 or 12 individual treatment stations of spray equipment or dip tanks.
An electrodeposition coating (“electrocoat”) is applied after the pretreatment steps to the metal vehicle body. Electrocoat baths usually comprise an aqueous dispersion or emulsion of a principal film-forming epoxy resin (“polymer” and “resin” are used interchangeably in this disclosure), having ionic stabilization in water or a mixture of water and organic cosolvent. In automotive or industrial applications for which durable electrocoat films are desired, the electrocoat compositions are formulated to be curable (thermosetting) compositions. This is usually accomplished by emulsifying with the principal film-forming resin a crosslinking agent that can react with functional groups on the principal resin under appropriate conditions, such as with the application of heat, and so cure the coating. During electrodeposition, coating material containing the ionically-charged resin having a relatively low molecular weight is deposited onto a conductive substrate by submerging the substrate in the electrocoat bath and then applying an electrical potential between the substrate and a pole of opposite charge, for example, a stainless steel electrode. The charged coating material migrates to and deposits on the conductive substrate. The coated substrate is then heated to cure or crosslink the coating.
One of the advantages of electrocoat compositions and processes is that the applied coating composition forms a uniform and contiguous layer over a variety of metallic substrates regardless of shape or configuration. This is especially advantageous when the coating is applied as an anticorrosive coating onto a substrate having an irregular surface, such as a motor vehicle body. The even, continuous coating layer over all portions of the metallic substrate provides maximum anticorrosion effectiveness. The phosphate pre-treatment, however, has up to now been an indispensable step in protecting against corrosion for automotive vehicle bodies. McMurdie et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,110,341 teaches that hydrocarbyl phosphate and phosphonic acid esters, which may include polyepoxide linking groups, can be incorporated into electrodeposition baths in amounts of up to 500 ppm on total bath weight for improved corrosion protection. Examples including phenylphosphonic acid were reported to have a modest increase in corrosion protection over untreated steel panels. December et al., U.S. Patent Application Publications No. 2008/0102214, 2008/0103268, and 2008/0103269 disclose that coating adhesion to a coated metal substrate can be improved by including in a film-forming component (e.g., crosslinkable resin or crosslinker) a nonionic metal coordinating structure. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2007/0244270 disclose a polymeric ligand prepared by reacting hydroxyl-functional resin or crosslinker with a cyclic anhydride incorporated in a coating to complex a metal catalyst to more easily and effectively incorporate the metal catalyst. Improved cure response, chip resistance, and corrosion inhibition are reported.
Organometallic compounds have been used in electrocoat coating compositions. Grosse-Brinkhaus et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication US2007/0027238 describes incorporating bismuth compounds, particularly bismuth carboxylates, as bactericides and fungicides. Bossert et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,001,900 describes incorporating organotin catalysts along with co-catalysts selected from bismuth, manganese, cobalt, nickel, copper, zinc, germanium, or antimony compounds such as acetylacetonates, lactates, and acetates in electrocoat coating compositions. Bossert et al. refer to the difficulty in dispersing some catalysts in electrocoat formulations.